1Woe to the land of buzzing wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush.2It is the one who sends envoys by sea and in vessels of reed upon the surface of the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a nation drawn out and peeled, to a people feared from that place onward, a nation of might and subjugation that divides rivers in its land.3All the inhabitants of the world and all who dwell in the land will see when a banner is raised on the mountains, and they will hear when a trumpet is sounded.4For thus says the LORD to me: I will keep quiet and remain quiet, and I will look from my dwelling place, like dazzling heat upon light, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.5For before the harvest, when the flower is finished and the unripe grape is weaned, it becomes a blossom; then the tendrils are cut with pruning knives, and the shoots are turned aside and struck away.6They will be left together for the birds of prey of the mountains and for the beasts of the land; the birds of prey will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the land will winter upon them.7At that time a gift will be brought to the LORD of Hosts from a people drawn out and peeled, and from a people feared from that place onward, a nation of might and subjugation that divides rivers in its land, to the place of the name of the LORD of Hosts, Mount Zion.